Opening Address by President Hyung-wook Kwon at the 2025 International Conference of the Korean Society of Prevention and Disinfection (KSPD)

Resource Recovery and Energy Conversion of Plastic Waste Based on Biodegrading Microorganisms and Photocatalysts

Incheon National University (President In-jae Lee) announced that a research team led by Professor Dong-gu Kang of the Department of Chemistry has published a study identifying mealworm gut microorganisms that accelerate the degradation of biodegradable plastics and elucidating their mechanism of action in the top-tier environmental journal Journal of Hazardous Materials (Impact Factor 12.4; top 3.2% in JCR).

The paper is titled “Isolation of Gut Microorganisms from Mealworms Capable of Degrading Biodegradable Plastic Polybutylene Succinate.”

As part of global efforts to address climate change, the use of biodegradable plastics has increased in recent years. However, the fact that natural degradation can take weeks to months has been cited as a limitation to broader industrial application. Accordingly, there is growing demand for technologies that accelerate biodegradation and valorize degradation byproducts.

The research team successfully isolated and characterized microorganisms from the gut of mealworms, an edible insect, that can degrade biodegradable plastics more rapidly, and clarified the mechanisms through which these microorganisms act during the degradation process. Hee-ju Jang, a researcher on the project, stated, “Further studies suggest that degradation byproducts generated during the mealworm digestive process have high potential to be utilized as material resources, and we expect this to lead to the expansion of circular economy technologies for biodegradable plastics.”

In this study, Hee-ju Jang (master’s candidate) and Hwi-cheol Shin (doctoral candidate) served as co–first authors. Separately, Jang has also collaborated with Professor Yeon-ho Kim’s research team at Konkuk University, achieving acceptance of research on photocatalyst-based water treatment technologies in Ceramics International (Impact Factor 5.6; top 8.8% in JCR). Follow-up studies are also underway for submission to top-tier journals, focusing on controlled degradation of biodegradable plastics using egg shell–based photonanocatalysts.

This research was supported by the White Bio Industry Professional Workforce Training Program funded by the Incheon Metropolitan Government and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, as well as the Basic Research Program (Mid-career Research) of the Ministry of Science and ICT.

Director Dong-gu Kang of the Industry–Academic Cooperation Foundation at Incheon National University stated, “By linking the White Bio Industry Professional Workforce Training Program with the RISE 2-② Industrial Innovation Support Project for Carbon Neutrality, we will strive to build a carbon-neutral industrial innovation model that fosters the joint growth of regional industries and the university’s research and education ecosystem.”

Incheon National University continues to expand practice-oriented professional workforce development through initiatives such as: ▲ training specialized researchers in carbon-neutral materials (master’s and doctoral levels); ▲ expanding research-oriented educational facilities and experimental infrastructure; ▲ operating undergraduate curricula and field training related to the white bio industry; and ▲ implementing ESG- and SDG-based capstone design programs.